on the passing of Tabaré Vázquez

Tabaré Vázquez is a name which isn’t going to mean much to the majority who read these words in English. The fact of his passing in the early hours of this morning is unlikely to have registered greatly in a world with more than enough headlines to go round. Something tells me he might have wanted it this way. Indeed, I find myself quietly surprised to find myself moved by his death, this most self-effacing of political leaders. A president that few outside the continent, even the country will have heard of. Who never had the profile of his fellow comrade-in-arms, Pepe Mujica, a darling of the global liberal classes.

Yet, his passing feels like the end of an era in a way that the passing of Mujica or Lula or any of the other figurehead Latin American political figures will not. 

Mujica has placed Tabaré Vázquez in his shade. In 1994, when I first arrived in Uruguay, it was Tabaré whose name, speech patterns and demeanour denoted the first stages of the reaffirmation of both the left and the democratic process in the country. The two went hand-in-hand. A large element of the justification of more than a decade of military dictatorship was that the left could not be trusted to run the country, a recurring pivot of authoritarianism. When democracy finally returned, with the realisation that military dictatorships are not an efficient or effective manner of governing, there was still a vast paranoia around the issue of the left. Frente Amplio, the leftist coalition, was condemned by the other political parties as being Soviet stooges, (in spite of the demise of the Soviet Union), supporters of terrorism, with members of the Tupamaros in their ranks (including Mujica). The play on fear proved effective. Frente Amplio developed a power base in the capital, but never looked like winning the country. 

In the midst of this, Vázquez emerged as the leader of Frente. The thing about Vázquez was that no-one could see him as a scary behemoth of the left. A doctor by profession, one of the country’s leading cancer specialists, he radiated common decency. He was never the most charismatic of speakers, but he chiselled out a loping cadence, which gave his speeches a wholehearted, optimistic gait. For a country devastated by years of oppressive military rule and economic hardship which afflicted the middle classes almost as much as the working classes, his voice represented a new kind of hope. One which was unpretentious, solid, aware of the work that needed to be done and prepared to do it. 

He lost the election in 1994 by a narrow margin. Finally, two elections and ten years later, he won. For the first time, Frente came to power. For the left, this was a moment of immense and understandable joy. However, for the centre and centre right, perhaps just as importantly, it was a moment of quiet acceptance. It was no longer a moment of fear. The contribution of Vázquez to this cannot be overstated. Mujica would never have been voted in if it hadn’t been for the five years of strong, stable government provided by Vázquez. Such was the respect that he was held in, that five years later he was summoned to return as the candidate of Frente, (the president here can only serve one consecutive term), and won again. He seemed older second time around, tired. It’s now clear that his body was failing him. It has been less than a year since the end of his second term and the handover of power to the new president, the right wing Lacalle Pou, which was handled with a dignity which others would do well to emulate.

The reason Vásquez’ passing should be mourned, even by those who have never heard of him, is that it feels as though he represents the last of a dying breed. The politician who is not and never planned to be a showman. The politician who didn’t need politics. Who didn’t go into politics for any reason other than to seek to contribute to her or his society. As a cancer specialist, Vázquez had the means to be independently wealthy. He had a job he loved, a job whose importance cannot be understated. This underpinned his commitment to his sense of duty but also his sense of moderation. The idea that political progress can be realised through the taking of restrained measures, just as much as through the perpetration of grand gestures. Growing up in the UK there was a whole generation of politicians who, for all their patrician arrogance, one could always sense were at least as concerned about the fate of the country and the inhabitants of that country as they were the fate of their party. Their methodology might have been questionable but their instincts seemed to focus on at the very least a vague notion of the common good, which is after all, what politics is about in a democratic society. The common good rather than the good of a nominated sector of society, country above party. Vázquez belonged to that generation of politicians. Men and women who didn’t seek fame, didn’t want to have an airport or a beer or a tote bag or a lipstick named after them. Perhaps this is no longer an epoch for this kind of moderation, but if that is the case, it is the passing of an era which deserves to be mourned. Just as the passing of Tabaré Vázquez should be mourned, no matter how much he personally might smile benignly and mutter something about the importance of los Uruguayos taking care of themselves at this delicate moment in history, that this should be our priority. 

Adios Tabaré. You have shaped my world in ways neither of us could ever have imagined possible. God speed. 

texto escrito para coletivo labirinto de são paulo

 Que es pulsaste en America Latina   - repuesta de Anthony Fletcher

Pienso - cuidado con los clichés 

Pienso - es hora de tirar abajo las estatuas 

Pienso - de todos. Los fundadores los caudillos los fachos pero también Che y Maradona y

Pienso - hay demasiado padres en este continente, ya es hora de las madres y los niños y los nietos

Pienso - la belleza siempre pulsa acá. Y la pobreza. Y las malezas. 

Pienso - no hay que pensar tanto

Hay que actuar.  

Escribir 

Tirar abajo las estatuas

Matar los clichés y las líneas de siempre

Y si vale hacer teatro 

Que si vale

Hacerlo como si fuera que Europa nunca existió 

Hay que comer Europa, tragarlo, digerirlo y expulsarlo 

Y reconocer la terrible ventaja que hay

En empezar de zero

En habitar un horizonte sin límites 

Tu horizonte 

Que está pulsando 

En America Latina

A Conversation with Jeremy

On the 31st January 2020 I was at a loose end in the morning. As a result I decided to visit Parliament Square, on what was, for better or worse, an historic day. It was an impromptu decision. I went with no expectations or agenda, save to bear wit- ness for a moment.

I arrived around 12.30pm. It was early. Any drama would happen later in the day. The square for now belonged to three separate parties. The tourists, the interna- tional press and the activists. The press had taken the high ground. Cameras set up for takes of the reporter speaking to camera with a backdrop of Parliament, and a boarded up Big Ben. Efficient women in smart clothes with one or two blokes in tow. The blokes setting up tripods or carrying bulky TV cameras. The tourists were the same as they would be on almost any other day. Bemused parties from around the world, temporarily caught up in the theatre of a national identity crisis. It might have been me but it felt as though many of the tourists seemed to have the voyeur- istic awareness that goes with watching parents trying to control a fractious child. They could look on condescendingly, knowing that this really wasn’t their problem.

The third party was the activists. I call them activists because these were the ones who were clearly there to promote or support a cause. The cause being Brexit, either for or against. The majority were there to support Brexit. A handful were wav- ing EU flags on the western side of the square, whilst the Eastern side, towards Tra- falgar Square, had been taken over by a ragged bunch of Brexiters. Many of them draped in Union Jacks, almost as many draped in the Stars and Stripes. There were a fair few “characters” who seemed to be looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. A man in a MAGA hat and sunglasses standing on a homemade plinth. Pseudo “Paras” wearing purple berets. One man in a Brexit party wind cheater. Some older women wrapped in flags who looked like they were hoping for a knees-up.

I moseyed around for a quarter of an hour, stopped to take some notes, then de- cided there wasn’t much to see and started to make my way out of the square. It was a gunmetal grey day with no hint of sun. Sometimes you feel the need to bear witness and you encounter something extraordinary or revelatory, but today didn’t feel like that at all.

As I was leaving the square I saw that a group was putting up a home-made mani- festo, attached to a plyboard construction that had been rigged up beneath the statue of Churchill. I stopped to read the manifesto. It stated ten demands. “1. Restore our Freedom of Speech eroded by hate speech laws. 2. Restore our right of self-defence and to bear arms. 3. Restoration of Common Law, Magna Carta and Bill of Rights. 4. Restoration of Double Jeopardy, jury trial and access to Legal Aid. 5. End the Cultural Marxist agenda and destruction of the family in our education system, law and public institutions. 6. Comprehensive teaching of British History, Geography, Constitution, and Christian Faith in our school system. 7. The return of full control of British Fishing waters, 200 miles. 8. Veterans priorities for housing, benefits and services. 9. No E.U. flags on official buildings. 10. Full disclosure and prosecutions for those involved in crimes and responsible for cover up of grooming gangs”.

For the first time I a twinge of anger. It seemed invidious that this group was taking advantage of the occasion to polemicise. Quite apart from what is known as the dog-whistle racism. I suppose my irritation registered on my face. I took two photos, including one of the man who was helping to erect the large poster. He was a tall man, with glasses, an anorak, faint stubble. He muttered something at me. I muttered something back. “Disgrace” was the word I used. A very British reproach. The man then turned and said: “You with your face like a donkey’s arse.” I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him right, so I stepped towards him and asked him to repeat it. He said that I was “one of them”. I asked him what that meant. He said: “You didn’t get a mouth like that from sucking oranges.”

There was something absurd about this man and his insults. I think I registered a homophobic note, which in itself seemed curious. I hadn’t gone looking for trouble and perhaps at this moment the prudent thing would have been to walk away, but at the same time, I felt like, why should I permit this man to insult me and not stand up to him? So I asked him what he meant by ‘one of them’. He replied “You know” and backed away from me. I followed him. I said I didn’t know. I asked him to ex- plain. He backed away further, stepping behind the trestle table. There were people all around us, most of them, I presumed, his people, associates of this group with its manifesto. I asked him if he was scared of me. He said he wasn’t, so I asked him to repeat what he had said. He moved away again but by now I had no intention of letting him off the hook. I took out my phone to jot down his reply. “Some- thing about my face,” I prompted. He then repeated his phrase. I noted it down. Then I asked him what he thought his face looked like. This seemed to wrong-foot him. “I don’t know”, he said, “probably like my mother and father’s faces.” I asked what their faces looked like. He then told me that he didn’t know what his father’s face looked like because he’d never met him. His father had walked out on him be- fore he was born. Then he told me that he knew what I was like, and I asked him how he thought he could know anything about me if we’d only just met. “I know you voted three times for Tony Blair,” he said. How did he know that? “I’m a bit of a psychic,” he replied. “My father was a big follower of Aleister Crowley”.

Things were taking a turn for the surreal. Aleister Crowley, the notorious black ma- gician, one of those faintly mythological characters who claimed to have com- muned with the devil, who was part Svengali, part fraud. Somehow it made sense that this strange man, who told me his name was Jeremy, should have steered the conversation towards his absent father being a follower of the devil-worshipper, Crowley, here on this day in Parliament Square.

At this point, which was when I was thinking about leaving, that we were ap- proached by an Irishman who said he was a reporter for the Irish Times. He asked us what we’d been discussing. I said that Jeremy had been talking about Aleister Crowley. This provoked the Irishman’s curiosity. He asked Jeremy if he’d be happy to answer a few questions. By now it was clear that some kind of transformation had occurred. Jeremy seemed keen to talk. The abusive man welcomed the chance to get his opinions heard. Later, as Jeremy’s lonely story unfolded, it struck me that the abuse might actually have been a form of reaching out, of communicating. I also wondered if his chosen insult, ‘a face like a donkey’s arse’, might not have been one that had once upon a time been aimed at him, which he had then appropriated.

The Irishman, who I later learned is called Patrick Freyne, thankfully took over the interview. I listened and interjected from time to time. Patrick’s condensed account of the conversation can be found at the end of the report he later filed for his newspaper. (https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/patrick-freyne-in-parliament- square-brexiteers-make-hay-at-final-fling-1.4158066?mode=amp). 

The more detailed version goes something like this. Jeremy’s father was/ is Dutch. Both his parents worked for airlines. He still has a soft spot for Heathrow. He spent his sixteenth birthday in Libya. Later he lived and worked in Malaysia for many years. He has a Malaysian daughter. (“And people call me racist.”) Patrick expressed surprise that, given his cosmopolitan background, Je- remy was so keen on pulling the drawbridge up. He denied that this is what Brexit is doing, saying London had always been a cosmopolitan port city. At which point I asked him if he’d be happy to see London continue to be a “cosmopolitan” city, something that seemed at odds with the manifesto he’d been putting up. Jeremy displayed a slightly awkward smile and commented that London had changed so much since he was a child growing up in Gloucester Road. I asked him what he meant by the word “change” and he said it used to be full of independent shops but now it was full of Prets.

Jeremy was quite good at side-stepping awkward questions. He’d tell us we need- ed to speak to Dan, a grey-haired man in a charcoal coat with a goatee who looked as though he might well have been a “cultural Marxist” in another life. Dan was set- ting up the stall and was evidently something of an authority figure. In his lapel was a silver pin of a sub-machine gun, which I took to be a Kalashnikov but Patrick’s article reveals was a Thompson. It caught my eye and I asked Jeremy why Dan was wearing this pin. Jeremy replied that it was because Dan and his followers were be- lievers in the second amendment. The Irish journalist expressed some surprise at this. He asked Jeremy what would happen if they didn’t get what they wanted out of Brexit, observing that everyone seemed to have a different idea of what it ought to mean. First off, Jeremy said that they’d infiltrate and take over the Tory party, “like the Marxists have done with the Labour party”. Then if that didn’t work, he said with his little smile again, a lot of people were talking about civil war. He said he didn’t necessarily agree with them, but.... “But you’ve won,” I said. “You’ve got your Brexit. You’re here to celebrate your victory. Who would you be fighting against?” “The leftists. The other side. It’s obvious that the leftists have won.” He looked even slightly mournful at this point. He wasn’t just saying this. He meant it. He felt as though he had lost. They’d won a battle but lost the war. The “cultural Marxists” had won.

By this point Jeremy had become quite affable. He had even gone so far as to apologise for his abusive language, when we discussed free speech and I said he had a right to say what he wanted but that didn’t mean he needed to be offensive. We talked briefly about whether it was right that they should have set up office be- neath the statue of Churchill and Jeremy commented that Churchill was another one who had been too leftist for his own good. When the conversation had started he had told Patrick that he was “to the right of Genghis Khan”, but now he back- tracked a little, complaining about how he had been insulted and called racist. It seemed obvious to me that, even though his organisation was espousing racist views, Jeremy didn’t believe he was racist and it upset him to be perceived in that way. The discrepancy between his stated aims and his personal idea of who he was didn’t seem to add up. He talked a lot about the need for a family-based society and the more he talked about it the more I found myself thinking about his absent, Crowley-following father.

In the background some of the beret-wearing pseudo military types were stamping on an EU flag and singing a bastardised anti-EU version of Auld Lang Syne. The conversation was winding up. All of a sudden Jeremy threw out a term that neither of us quite understood. He said that everyone had been black-pilled. The journalist picked him up on this. What did “black-pilled” mean? Jeremy explained that it was a term that came from The Matrix. Most people were black-pilled, which meant that they couldn’t see beyond the world that had been constructed for them by mod- ern media. But he and his people were “red-pilled”, which meant they could see through to the truth. There were also “white pills” which were the happy pills.

At which point the conversation became less happy. Jeremy told us he had had a business in Borneo, but his business partner had ripped him off. It wasn’t clear how long ago this was, but now he was back in London, living on the streets. He had only come along today to enjoy some time with his people.

His final words were the ones that most took me by surprise. He said that as soon as he could, he was going to go and live in Hungary. He’s a big fan of Orban and his “family values”. “But you won’t be able to go and live there now,” I said. “You’ve just made sure you’ve taken away your right to live there.” Jeremy wan’t convinced. He said he’d been to the embassy. Orban would welcome like-minded Christian- values people like him. He was sure of it.

A child in a crusader helmet and George Cross shirt was manning the desk that had been set up below Winston Churchill. A chunky fellow in a MAGA hat was flitting around. Jeremy faded back into the pack of his people. The journalist and I chatted for a while. He told me that Jeremy was far from the most extreme. Some of the people he had spoken to were genuinely scary.

There’s a great deal of discussion about the “leavers”; who they are and why they voted leave. The journalist, Patrick, was clear in that there is no coherent, unifying principle behind the leavers approach. Beyond the claims of “sovereignty” or “independence”, the aims are amorphous, shape-shifting, emotional. It’s about the gut rather than the intellect. An urge towards an idea of freedom which they cur- rently do not feel they possess. What that freedom might turn out to be is some- thing of a mystery to them, not to mention anyone looking in from the outside.

In truth, you could have seen an argument being made for the Leave campaign, at a certain point way back down the road. The EU has its flaws. Ask anyone from a country outside the EU who wants to come and work there. Ask anyone on a boat in the Mediterranean trying to enter it. Having said this, all political systems are flawed. The only place where the political system isn’t flawed is a totalitarian state. But fair enough, there was, once upon a time, an intellectual rationale for leaving the EU, whose greatest proponents, have either deserted (ie Roland Smith) or turned into barefaced liars (ie Daniel Hannan).

What seems apparent from the reporting of the the triumphant Leaver night of 31 January 2020, is that this is an emotional victory. It’s politics, economics and demo- cracy viewed through the lens of a football match. One nil to the England. It’s also a way in which people who have felt powerless, or disenfranchised, to feel a moment of power. Which for them is equatable to taking back control. For a moment. What was most terrifying speaking to Jeremy, is that this is nothing more than a moment.
The war, in Jeremy’s eyes (against “cultural Marxism” or “the other side”) is one that is still being lost. Brexit has been part of that war. It’s their Battle of Naseby. Brexit isn’t the end of anything for them. If anything, it’s the start.

When I left Parliament Square I walked along the Thames to meet a friend for lunch. It reminded me of a similar walk I took on the 7th July 2005. That was the day of multiple terrorist attacks in London. The attacks took place in the morning. At lunchtime I decided to go for a walk and get the pulse of the city. What seemed remarkable that day fifteen years ago was the sang-froid. People were going about their business like it was any other day. Some waved at police frogmen in front of Westminster. The city’s phlegmatic insistence on carrying on as normal had been heart-warming. The British keep their cool. They don’t get overly emotional, which is sometimes seen as a weakness but in this case was clearly a strength. On Brexit day, the streets outside Parliament Square were similar. There were joggers. A man walked by wearing EU trousers, but that was as political as it got. Only this time, it didn’t feel the same. It felt as though something had changed, irreversibly, but not for the better. The ones talking about using guns and imposing their views on the population weren’t radical Jihadists; they were malcontents who dressed their kids up in a George Cross outfit and a crusader helmet.

As far as Jeremy was concerned, I was the enemy. It isn’t hard to see how a violent use of language could presage the adoption of physical violence. This isn’t about Europe anymore. It was never about Europe. It’s about deeply held resentments that have never had the chance to be lanced. Resentments that brood and breed in splenetic corners of social media, in the drunken hours in pubs where time stands still, in the lost dream of a land which never was and never will be but survives in the imagination of a desperate man walking the streets of a city which has changed beyond recognition, failing to realise that the world has changed, that there’s no going back, that the future will only look like the past in theme parks he cannot afford to visit.